There have been conventional digital cameras and monitoring cameras incorporating a flash device. A xenon lamp is mainly used as a light source for the flash device because of its short time large light output and high color rendition.
As shown in FIG. 43, such a flash device includes a xenon lamp 401, an inverter 402, an aluminum electrolytic condenser 403, a switch circuit 404 and so on. Electric charges charged in the aluminum electrolytic condenser 402 are converted into a current by a switching operation using the inverter 402 in order to emit light from the xenon lamp 401.
However, it takes time for such a conventional flash device to charge the aluminum electrolytic condenser 403 once light is emitted, which may result in difficulty in continuous emission and impossibility to achieve continuous lighting.
In addition, such a conventional flash devices using the xenon lamp 401 require plastic protection against high voltages and is hard to achieve compactness or lightness due to its large volume.